


your smile speaks books to me

by laiqualaurelote



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Books, Bookstores, F/M, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 21:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20216296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laiqualaurelote/pseuds/laiqualaurelote
Summary: Aziraphale's bookshop becomes accidentally famous on Instagram, to his great distress. Since Crowley invented Instagram, it's also his problem.





	your smile speaks books to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rougerooi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rougerooi/gifts).

> Who did not so much Saunter Vaguely Downwards as Straight Out Fall.

There is a young lady hiding in the corner of the bookshop. Aziraphale can sense her - has been tracking her since she snuck in, partly because she is wearing sunglasses indoors and partly because she is lurking, and both these things remind him of Crowley. All very pleasant, but she might steal something, and to save her from that temptation, he pops over to ask if she needs any help.

"Oh no, it's fine," says the young lady, whose shades are positively enormous, turning half her face into round mirrors of his. "I was just admiring this." She points at a copy of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. "I mean, I've read it, of course, but I was just doing a spot of research and this is such a lovely edition."

Aziraphale beams. "A good eye, my dear. Why, it is the 1869 first edition of Part Two. Hardly any of those left today.”

"Goodness," says the young lady. She looks at it with such naked longing on her face, obscured though it is, that Aziraphale softens. For though he loathes letting his books go, there are some books that simply belong with some people, and when this happens he knows it in his decidedly un-angelic gut.

"Could I - could I - do you think?"

In the back room, Aziraphale gets out two pairs of gloves, lays the book out on gently on the table and lets her leaf through it. She takes off her sunglasses and her eyes are rapt and shining. Yes, thinks Aziraphale, he can let this one go.

The young lady pays the five-figure price for the book without blinking. "Could you do me a favour?" she says as he rings her up. "I hate to ask other people to do this usually, but could you take a photo of me holding it? Just on my phone?"

It takes Aziraphale a few tries to figure out the camera of her smartphone - his fingers keep slipping into other foreign modes such as "panorama" and "slo-mo" - but eventually he gets the shot lined up and she walks into the frame and opens the book just so, the light from the shop window falling onto the faded cover. She ignores the camera, her gaze on the book. She is frightfully pretty, Aziraphale thinks - he thinks these things fondly of humans often, as he does of cats and teacups and souffles - and he takes a photo. In fact, he takes ten, which he is later informed is a "burst", but she does not seem to mind.

"I'll tag the shop, of course," she says, scrolling through the photos.

"Hm?"

"In the post."

"Oh." She'll be sending him mail? What of? But it seems like she will not be more forthcoming, so Aziraphale supposes he will find out when it arrives. "How nice of you, my dear."

The young lady flashes him a quick smile, fits the sunglasses back on her face and a cap on her head, and slips out of the shop casually, as if she isn't clutching thousands of pounds' worth of old words to her chest. It is nice to know young people still read these days, thinks Aziraphale blithely, and goes back to his accounts.

*

Crowley is on the Tube. Crowley hates the Tube, never takes it if he can help it, but also he is in the middle of an ongoing project to ensure that there will be improvement works on the Hammersmith and City line every Sunday until the end of time. Previously this was not a problem because the end of time had already been blocked off in the calendar, but ever since the world failed to perish in blood and flame, he has had to recalculate the longevity of several of his projects.

Crowley is no longer employed, of course. He has no KPIs to hit, no appraisals to gear up for, no supervisors to impress. It is terrifying if he thinks about it too much, so he doesn't; he simply continues as he always has, causing mild mayhem for people who don't appreciate its brilliance. At least he need no longer go about taking credit for things that turn even his demon's stomach. Perhaps he might take some time off. Do a degree, or something.

You can't get a phone signal on the Tube. Crowley made sure of that in the mid-2000s, when he predicted how fun it would be to manipulate people's emotions through network coverage. So it is not until he comes up to the surface of Charing Cross station that his phone starts jumping in his pocket: five missed calls, all from Aziraphale.

Crowley goes cold. It’s frightful, really, the way these things get to him. Aziraphale’s probably done something like forget a lunch reservation or misplace a bookend, but even so he can smell ash and burning leather, remember being dragged away from his own body, watching his terrified reflection in the mirrors of his shades. It’s awful to think that this is how it is going to be for the rest of his existence, except it would be worse, of course, if there weren’t an Aziraphale to fret over every bleeding moment. He calls Aziraphale back.

“Angel? What is it?”

Aziraphale doesn’t sound pained, just strained. “Did you do something, Crowley?”

“What?” says Crowley, who has done many, many things, “what did I do?”

“Oh, I suppose it isn’t you then. It’s just - something odd is happening in the shop.”

“Is it dangerous?” Crowley shouts. People on the escalators turn to look at him. “Don’t go near it!”

“Oh, it’s not that - it’s just. Odd.” There’s a lot of background noise; Aziraphale is almost shouting too. “Could you pop by, take a look?”

Crowley left the Bentley parked on a corner where it can menace incoming buses on its downtime. He sets the resulting ticket on fire and peels off manically into traffic.

“Aziraphale?” he shouts, tearing into the shop, which is -

\- which is full of people.

Crowley stares. For centuries now, A. Z. Fell has muddled along in relative obscurity, drawing a small if stubborn clientele despite its owner’s best efforts. On an average day you could do a decent conga around the central display, if it were even open to begin with. But now it is packed to the rafters with people, most of them young, and they are all taking photos. Of the bookshop, of each other, but mostly of themselves.

“Oh my god,” says a young woman wearing a dress with a dozen pocket flaps, none of which lead to actual pockets. “This place is so #aesthetic.” She is somehow inserting hashtags into verbal speech, a fiendish art even Crowley has yet to master.

“Bit dingy, if you ask me,” says the young man tasked with photographing her.

“Shut up, babe, it’s such a vibe. #vintage is all the rage these days, you know. Can you get me on this ladder?”

“Oi,” says another young woman in trumpet sleeves, who is striking a pose on a rung and pretending to browse the upper shelves, “I found this ladder first, get your own.”

Crowley barely escapes being discorporated by a selfie stick and locates Aziraphale by the sound of shouting - “Unhand Lady Cavendish, you rascals!” which can only mean that somebody has tried to remove the wrapping of his 17th-century copy of The Blazing World. Crowley passes the offending couple, muttering angrily about rude owners, and finds Aziraphale backed into a corner of his own shop, looking like a rabbit trammelled by hunting dogs.

“Back room,” says Crowley, “now.”

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Aziraphale says, once they have locked themselves in the back room away from the rampaging horde. “At first I thought it was the mafia again, even though I’d sent that lot packing, but these people are so much worse!”

“These aren’t the mafia, angel,” says Crowley gravely. “These are _ influencers_.”

Aziraphale gapes at him.

“Think,” says Crowley, taking him by the shoulders and giving him a little shake, “think back on all the things you’ve done recently. Have you given them any cause to notice you at all?”

“I reduced some of the bookmarks by twenty per cent on Monday,” says Aziraphale. “Do you think that might have been it?”

“Hopeless,” says Crowley, taking out his phone. It doesn’t take him long to find the answer - there’s been a sharp spike of posts on Instagram using the shop’s location tag since the weekend. 

“What’s that?”

“Instagram, angel.”

“Not one of yours, is it?”

“Well...”

Crowley remains rather proud of Instagram. On an average day it rustles up at least two sins - usually Pride and Envy - and on a good day it can hit all seven. He’d been angling for a commendation for it, but Hell typically backdates commendations by decades, centuries even, and now it seems unlikely he will ever get his. Not that it matters.

Having prodded Instagram into being, he left it to fester in the Petri dish of humanity, as he does most of his projects. And as his projects are wont to do, it is now coming back to bite him, like the M25 and automated checkouts sensitive to unexpected items in the bagging area. Aziraphale has always said that he needs to develop more empathy with his future self.

“So it _ is _ your doing,” exclaims Aziraphale. “You and your wiles, Crowley, I should have known.”

“Bite me,” says Crowley absent-mindedly, still scrolling through a backlog of posts until he hits the motherlode. “_She _ came into your shop?”

Aziraphale squints at the photo. “Oh! Yes. I took that,” he adds proudly. “Lovely girl. Wore shades indoors, just like you.”

The photo has four million likes. “Do you know who that is?” hisses Crowley. “No wonder you went viral.”

“No,” says Aziraphale, who never goes to the movies and in whose mind colour television is still a new phenomenon. “Is she very famous?”

“She has more than fifty million people following her.”

“At the same time?” Aziraphale frowns. “That sounds rather unsafe.”

Outside, there is a crash. It turns out to be from the ladder falling over from the weight of too many influencers climbing onto it.

“Oh, _ do _ something, Crowley,” says Aziraphale in desperation.

Crowley sighs. He stalks out of the back room, concentrates so hard he gives himself a migraine and snaps his fingers.

It moves through the crowd like a wave. There are gasps, even screams, as people stare at their phones and flee the shop.

“What did you do?” Aziraphale wants to know.

“They all think that hackers are holding their accounts to ransom,” says Crowley diffidently. “They’ve got to pay up in an hour or have their accounts deleted.”

“Oh. Where does the money go?”

Crowley shrugs. “Wherever you like. Puppy shelter.”

Aziraphale pats him gratefully on the elbow and goes off to straighten up the shop, which is now empty except for an elderly lady who wants to know if “you’ve got that new Fifty Shades Of Grey book, petal, our Pam was saying I ought to have a go at it”.

“Nah, he doesn’t have it,” says Crowley. He picks a copy of Anais Nin’s Delta Of Venus off the shelf and hands it to her instead. “Try this one though. Pam will thank you for it.”

Aziraphale is clearly exhausted and lets her buy the book without even trying to stop her. “They’ll be back, won’t they?” he says to Crowley. “It’s not going to stop.”

“We’ll think of something.”

“We should ask the young people for help.”

“What, the Antichrist and his lot?”

“Not _ that _ young, Crowley.” Aziraphale wrings his hands. “I mean _ the millennials_.”

*

Anathema shows up at the bookshop, Newton in tow, with an alacrity that makes Crowley think her career change to “funemployed descendant” isn’t proving quite as fulfilling as she expected. 

“The first thing you need to do,” she says after they have explained the situation, “is set up an account for the bookshop and get it verified.”

“What?” says Aziraphale. “Won’t that only encourage more people?”

“The narrative has got out of hand,” says Anathema. She gestures at the hastily erected NO PHOTOS PLEASE sign, which all the customers are blatantly ignoring. “You need to take back control of the narrative. You know how many bookshops would kill for this kind of publicity?”

“But I don’t _ want _ to sell more books - ”

“Listen to yourself,” says Anathema, bossy. “If you’re going to be precious about that, fine. But there are a dozen other bookshops just within walking distance who could use that business you’re so determined to throw away. So Newt’s going to call them for you and establish a network, so that if you don’t want to sell to people, you can just redirect them to whoever stocks the title they want nearby.”

“Newt is going to do that?” say Aziraphale, Crowley and Newt together.

“Babe,” says Anathema, “it’s the Yellow Pages and a rotary phone, you’ll be fine. Now, Aziraphale is going to show you how to use both of those. Crowley, with me.”

“Did you just force Aziraphale to hire Newt?” says Crowley to her once she has taken him aside.

“Yes,” says Anathema bluntly. “I need to think of something to keep him busy. Can’t have him hanging around at loose ends while I’m off doing what I need to do.”

“And what’s that?”

Anathema shrugs. “Might get a second PhD. Write a book. Start a coven. You know.” 

They watch Newt attempt to get to grips with the rotary phone system.

“He’s an idiot,” says Anathema, “but apparently I love him.”

“Story of our blessed lives, book girl,” says Crowley with feeling.

“Hey,” says a girl to Newt from where she and her friend are trying to do a wefie in the Philosophy section, “can you help us take a photo?”

“Sure,” says Newt, taking her phone. “Three, two, one - ”

There is a small puff of static. The phone sparks once and gives up the ghost. “Erm,” says Newt, handing it back to its horrified owner, “it seems to have died.”

“See?” says Anathema to an awed Crowley. “Uniquely qualified. He’s also been trained to stick people with pins, in case that’s useful. Now, he’s not going to able to handle the social media aspect of things, of course, so you’re going to have to do that part.”

“What? No.”

Anathema purses her lips. “I thought you said you invented Instagram.”

“I know my way around an algorithm,” says Crowley.[1] “That doesn’t mean I know how to do...hashtags, and all that. That’s like saying to a parent, hey, you birthed this person, do you know how they ended up a glue-sniffing kleptomaniac and by the way, where d’you get the best glue?”

“But you do have Instagram.” Anathema sticks her hand out for his phone. “Show me.”

Crowley, groaning internally, shows her. Anathema scrolls through his feed critically. “Your Instagram is just photos of plants.”

“Oh yes. Sometimes I do Boomerangs so you can see them shivering. They think it's a cry for help, but everyone else just thinks it's the wind.”

“Don’t worry about the hashtags,” says Anathema. “I’ll send you an approved list. Now, you’re going to take a photo of me.”

She hauls Crowley around various spots in the shop until she has settled on one she likes, puts his phone back in his hands and frames the shot for him.

“But you’re not even looking at me.”

“Just take the damn shot,” says Anathema through gritted teeth.

They all gather around Crowley’s phone to stare at the photo. Anathema is in profile - you can see her aquiline nose and the frame of her hipster glasses. Her dusty teal coat is a spot of cool colour amid the warm tones of the bookshelves stuffed with faded spines. 

“You look really nice,” says Newt dutifully. Crowley carefully uses an elbow to keep him from touching the phone.

“And that’s your first post,” says Anathema. “You’re welcome.”

*

“Pick a book, angel,” says Crowley. “Any book you like.”

“Oh my,” flutters Aziraphale. “_Any _ book? But there are so many.”

Crowley rolls his eyes behind his shades, which he knows perfectly well Aziraphale can see him doing. “You’re to pick one a day to post about, Anathema says. You’ll get to pick another one tomorrow.”

Aziraphale goes off into the stacks, muttering to himself. Crowley rearranges himself on the sofa, which he had installed in the shop for the express purpose of lounging upon - the whole point of furniture, surely - and which has the added benefit of ruining people’s photos of that half of the shop, unless they want to upload photos with a man in black sprawled in the foreground, doing his finest “Paint me like one of your French girls” impression.[2]

Over at the counter, Newt is trying to dissuade a customer from buying The Collected Works Of John Donne. “Unfortunately that copy is spoken for,” he is saying, “but our friends over at Skoob have another for quite a competitive price.”

“I don’t want to walk all the way over to Skoob when there’s a copy right here!” exclaims the customer, miffed.

“Well,” says Newt mildly, “maybe you don’t really want the book after all. A lot of people _ say _ they want books, but when it comes to putting in the effort...”

The customer splutters. Crowley wonders idly when Newt learnt passive-aggressiveness. Not from Anathema, who is pure aggression; is it something that just naturally breeds in booksellers?

He is distracted by a notification. “Look, Shakespeare & Co is following us now.”

“Isn’t that Sylvia’s shop?” calls Aziraphale from deep in the shelves. “I remember she used to have the most charming salons.”

“We got disinvited,” says Crowley.

“Only because you slapped Hemingway.”

“He was being rude about your clothes, angel, only I’m allowed to do that. Properly decked me too, he did.”

Aziraphale tuts. “Well, you made sure Across The River And Into The Trees got all those dreadful reviews.”

“Nah,” says Crowley. “He did that all on his own, it was a terrible book. Anyway, this is the new shop, Sylvia’s got shut down because she wouldn’t sell the Nazis Finnegans Wake.”

“Good on her,” says Aziraphale, resident expert at not selling Nazis books. He emerges from the shelves with not one but five tomes. “I couldn’t pick _ just _ one,” he says sheepishly. “It would hurt the others’ feelings.”

“I don’t see the point in giving your inanimate objects personalities if they’re just going to bully you,” says Crowley. “It should be the other way round.”

Aziraphale pulls _ that _ face. Crowley sighs.

“Fine,” he says. “We’ll do a flatlay.”

*

Having determined that Newt is more or less capable of managing the shop on his own, Aziraphale has left him with the necessary instructions[3] and packed off to an estate sale. He has even persuaded Crowley to use the Bentley to ferry his loot back to London.

“It’s a marvel of classic engineering and you’re using it as a moving van.”

“But there are _ rare books_, Crowley. There might be _ incunabula._”

Crowley drives to the estate at an even hundred and thirty. Aziraphale grips the dashboard, white-knuckled, and says nothing. It’s amazing what he’ll put up with in the name of literature.

The estate sale is in a modest terrace home in Swindon, whose late owner died a year and a half ago of a heart attack - though given the way his book collection spills across five rooms and accumulates in precarious towers in the attic, it’s a marvel he didn’t perish in an avalanche of tomes instead. His widow notes as much, as Aziraphale potters delightedly through this house-wide fire hazard. “I always thought I’d go first,” she informs them dryly, “but no, he never would be told what to do or when to do it, and now I’m left to clear up his mess for him.”

“Look, Crowley,” exclaims Aziraphale, “there’s a Molini edition of the Decameron in the original Italian. On vellum, too.”

“You don’t even read Italian,” says Crowley.

“It’s both very much and not at all like Latin, it’s just confusing,” huffs Aziraphale. “Anyway, you read Italian, you can read it to me.”

“Decameron schmameron,” retorts Crowley. His heart does a queer unauthorised flop at the idea of reading to Aziraphale. 

He turns his attention instead to the messaging war he is engaged in with one of the influencers who has latched onto the shop’s sudden popularity like a lamprey. She’s been sending them DMs about her considerable following and how, if they paid her an obscene amount of money for a couple of sponsored posts, they could really boost their millennial market penetration. She’s a lifestyle blogger with a sideline in “bookstagramming”, although this really means she posts a lot about Rupi Kaur and poses in sponsored clothing in front of her bookshelf, all the books of which are shelved spine inwards for a uniform aesthetic. 

They have reached that point in their negotiations when she has threatened to expose their rude behaviour to her followers and Crowley has responded with, as of this moment, 66 videos of goats screaming in disturbingly human ways. He’s been sending one every hour. He could easily pluck her soul for the legions of the damned any minute now, which is a pity, because it’s not like he has a quota to fill any more.

The widow comes to offer him a plate of biscuits. “Ginger snap, m’dear?”

Crowley as a rule does not spend time with humans towards the end of their lifespans. It reminds him uncomfortably of how finite they are and how he will go on and on without them. They are destined either for an eternity in heaven or hell, the avoidance of which is Crowley’s favourite thing about immortality - Aziraphale aside.

“No thanks,” he says.

The widow hums, unoffended, and wanders off to proffer biscuits to Aziraphale, who has somehow got dusty all over despite having only been in the attic for ten minutes. Crowley will have to miracle him clean before they get back in the Bentley. He’s elbow deep in the poetry collection; motes of dust float in the shaft of sun coming in through the skylight, giving him the illusion of the halo he hasn’t manifested since Mesopotamia. Crowley, unbidden, takes a photo of him on his phone. He thinks that he may post it as an Insta-story, perhaps. He looks at it and thinks again, maybe not. Some things you keep for yourself.

“We didn’t take enough photos of my Stephen when he was alive,” says the widow, suddenly at his elbow. “Didn’t go in for that sort of thing. It’s funny, now - I can’t remember what he used to look like. Have to go and look at an album, to remind myself.”

She waves with her spare hand at all the books. “Used to drive me mad, these did. Now they’re the last part of him left, that he put together himself. And I’m going to have them broken up and sold away.”

“He’ll take care of them,” says Crowley.

“I know,” she says. “That’s why I called him.” She shakes her head slightly, resumes her brisk air. “Cup of tea?”

Aziraphale, in defiance of all monetary sense, declares he will take the entire collection and writes the widow a cheque for far more than the mouldering lot is worth. The Bentley has to be persuaded to take 50 boxes of books. It is reluctant, but eventually stretches wide enough to fit them all in. Crowley hopes they aren’t all Queen singles by the end of the drive.

“You take care of my Stephen’s books now,” says the widow. 

“Of course,” beams Aziraphale, clearly wrapped in visions of a glorious future in which he takes all these books back to Soho and never sells a single one.

She pats Crowley’s hand. “And you take care of him.” Before Crowley can respond, she turns and hobbles back into the house.

The sun is setting as they drive back to London. “She’s not got long for this world, has she?” remarks Crowley.

“No,” says Aziraphale. “But it’ll be painless when it happens. I’ve made sure.”

Crowley gives him a sidelong glance.

“They don’t last long without each other,” Aziraphale goes on. “So I’ve found. Not when they’ve been together for as long as she and her husband had.”

“S’pose not,” says Crowley. “Funny lot, humans.”

“You could say so,” says Aziraphale. They sit in silence for the rest of the drive.

*

The shop has been besieged with interview requests for a while now, and Crowley finally decides to grant one. 

“Vice?” exclaims Aziraphale. “You want me to give an interview to _ Vice_?”

“They’re perfectly respectable,” says Crowley. “And they’re doing a ‘Ten Independent Bookshops You Should Check Out In London’ listicle, you know you love lists.”

“I can’t go about giving interviews to a magazine that calls themselves _ Vice_. Whatever would - ”

“Whatever would Upstairs say,” Crowley finishes the sentence for him. “And the answer to that, angel, is _ who gives a damn_.”

The journalist they send is a young one, name of Sara Henley, bomber jacket, shock of hair and a nose ring. “Thanks so much for this,” she says as Crowley lets her into the shop.

Crowley jerks a thumb over his shoulder at where Aziraphale is pottering around adjusting chairs nervously. “He doesn’t give interviews often, so don’t fuck this up,” he says bluntly. “You know what happens to digital journalists who fuck up.”[4]

“I...don’t, actually,” says Sara.

Crowley grins. “Let’s hope you never have to find out.”

She starts off well, getting Aziraphale to open up about his love of books and which authors are his favourites (thankfully he doesn’t get into waxing lyrical about meeting them in person) before they get into the origin of the bookshop, which by popular fiction was founded by Aziraphale’s great-times-a-dozen-grandfather two centuries ago and handed down in the family. If Sara notes a disturbing degree of familial resemblance between Aziraphale and his alleged ancestor, she makes no comment. Crowley slinks about in the background, checking the shop’s notifications and keeping an eye on proceedings.

“What did you think when the shop went viral, then?” asks Sara.

“Frankly, my dear, I was alarmed. We hadn’t had that sort of attention in cen - I mean, in decades.” Aziraphale coughs. “I hadn’t the faintest idea what the Gram was.”

“But now you do.”

“Not quite,” admits Aziraphale. “I leave Crowley to handle all that.”

“I see,” says Sara, scribbling furiously. “And just to clarify, Mr Crowley is your - ”

“Agent,” says Crowley, at the same time that Aziraphale says, “Husband.”

There is a long silence in the shop. Then Crowley says, “Your what?”

“My dear boy,” says Aziraphale, “after all these years, I’d quite assumed - perhaps I’ve drawn the wrong conclusions - ”

“You never!” shouts Crowley, flailing about the shelves. “I think I would have _ noticed_!”

“I mean, we’re hardly demonstrative people - ”

“ - generally you notice if you marry someone, because they bloody _ ask _ you about it - ”

“Well!” Aziraphale reaches out to snag Crowley, who is becoming a bit of a maelstrom at this point, by the elbow. And it actually burns, like a brand, because what is Crowley’s life like? “Then consider this me asking.”

Crowley realises that everyone in the shop is holding their breath. Newt is frozen in the middle of restocking receipt paper.

“Are we really doing this in front of Vice UK?” he says plaintively.

“I can,” ventures Sara in a small voice, “come back later, or something…”

“Crowley,” says Aziraphale severely. “Focus.”

“_You _ focus,” says Crowley in despair.

“I am,” says Aziraphale with infinite patience. “Everything. On you.”

Crowley swallows and stares at him. Aziraphale offers him a sliver of a smile. Hesitant, but steady.

Crowley licks his lips, points at Sara and says, “For the record, then. Husband. Write that down.”

Newt drops the roll of receipt paper. Somebody standing out of sight in the Biography section bursts into applause.

“Also this interview is over,” Crowley goes on. “Because I have things I need to discuss. With said husband.”

“No problem.” Sara is already stuffing her notepad and recorder back into her satchel as she backs away. At the door, she calls out, “Congratulations!” then scarpers.

“You know that’s going to be all over Instagram,” says Crowley. He lets himself, finally, put his hand over the hand Aziraphale has on his elbow. 

“Let it,” says Aziraphale, and smiles, and smiles.

*

** _Ten Independent Bookshops You Should Check Out In London_ **

_6._ _A. Z. Fell & Co _

_ 19 Greek Street _

_ Opening hours vary _

_ This antiquarian delight in Soho may be the latest #bookstagram darling, thanks to an innocuous celebrity endorsement, but it has been around for far longer than that. _

_ The bookshop was opened at the tail end of the 18th century. Wandering its genteel, old-fashioned interior, you might be forgiven for thinking that hardly any time has passed within these walls since then. _

_ An antique cash register and honest-to-goodness rotary phone add to its old-world charm, and even its owner, Mr A. Z. Fell, bears a striking resemblance to his ancestor who first set up as a “purveyor of rare books to the gentry”. _

_ Its collection dates back to the early medieval era, says Mr Fell. “I might even have a tenth-century codex or two in the back, if that’s your cup of tea.”_

_ Over the years, the bookshop has accrued a somewhat prickly reputation for its erratic opening hours and exceedingly selective attitude towards its clientele. _

_ But it has found a second wind in the Instagram era. During a visit on a weekday afternoon, no less than ten people could be found at any one time taking selfies amid the shelves. _

_ Its Instagram account @azfellbooks has a respectable 50,000 followers and posts quirky book recommendations: “Next up in Homer Fic Recs, we have Virgil’s Aeneid, a rollicking tale of one man’s quest to sort out his GPS and fulfil his destiny. Will Aeneas get a wiggle on in time to reach Italy? Find out in book 12”. _

_ Mr Fell thinks Instagram is a “delightful new way to get young people to read more” but confesses himself altogether boggled by social media. _

_ He leaves that side of the business to his husband A. J. Crowley, whom regulars will recognise as the man often found lounging on the shop’s sofa, wearing sunglasses indoors. _

_ Mr Crowley, a freelance consultant, professes no interest whatsoever in books. “Do I look like the sort of person who reads?” he declares, nettled, as Mr Fell gazes fondly at him. Opposites attract, indeed. _

_ Whether you’re a casual #bookstagrammer or a hardcore bibliophile, A. Z. Fell is the perfect place to while away an afternoon. Come for the aesthetic, stay for the literature. _

**Author's Note:**

> 1Crowley taught himself coding in the 1990s and keeps up with developments every now and then. His favourite programming language is, of course, Python.[return to text]
> 
> 2As with many things, Crowley is proved wrong about this when #BookshopSofaMan starts trending. It will eventually evolve into a meme.[return to text]
> 
> 3Newt has been told that in the event any of the sinister men in suits shows up and asks for Mr Fell, he is to tell them to call a certain number. The number goes to the country residence of retired Sgt and Mrs Shadwell, so it is a coin toss as to whether the caller will be propositioned for an evening of intimate relaxation or questioned about how many nipples they have.[return to text]
> 
> 4There is a particular circle of Hell reserved for digital reporters and those who sin on social media. In it, the reporters write endless articles based on the comments of online trolls, who then comment on the articles in which they have been quoted. The reporters must then write new articles based on these comments. The cycle repeats for infinity. It is a low-maintenance hell, but an exceedingly horrible one.[return to text]
> 
>   
The title of this fic is from Breakthru by Queen. I have left unnamed the young lady to whom Aziraphale sells Little Women, though it is quite likely [her](https://people.com/movies/emma-watson-little-women-meryl-streep-everything-we-know/).
> 
> I am indebted to Shaun Bythell's The Diary Of A Bookseller for trade secrets. Recommending Anais Nin instead of E. L. James is a tactic practised by Atlantis Books in Oia. A.Z. Fell & Co may not be a real bookshop but Skoob in Bloomsbury is and I do recommend it, as I do Shakespeare & Co and Atlantis Books. Shoutout to all the independent bookstores and booksellers still fighting the good fight out there; support your local bookstores!


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